Why I Keep Hosting Debates: A Personal Reflection
I realized recently that I’ve been organizing formal debates at conferences for some time now. This has led me to reflect on why I do that.
Revisiting — Journalism, Preprint Servers, and the Truth: Allocating Accountability
In light of the recent anniversary of the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, we revisit Rick Anderson’s post on how journalists flag unsupported claims and blatant falsehoods, and whether preprint platforms should do the same.
Reading About Libraries and Librarians
Libraries and librarians the world over are complex, diverse, and distinctive — and they make for fascinating reading.
Guest Post — Translating Digital Humanities Skills From College to Career
Sarah Ketchley and Lindsey Gervais discuss the value offered by programs in the digital humanities .
What (Not) to Do When Libraries Won’t Get on Board
Why aren’t libraries providing support for your open access or open science initiative? Be careful what you assume.
Guest Post: Empowering Young Scientists Through Publication – 10 years of the Journal of Emerging Investigators
Today’s post looks back on the Journal of Emerging Investigators as it approaches it’s 10th anniversary of providing a forum from middle school and high school students.
Guest Post — Results of the 2nd Annual SSP Professional Skills Survey and the Updated Professional Skills Map
The SSP Career Development Committee’s Professional Skills Map is in its second iteration, and the results are presented here. The Skills Map aims to guide scholarly publishing professionals across industries and career levels in recognizing their personal strengths and interpersonal and technical skills, and then map those skill sets to fitting roles across the industry, empowering them to advance in their current roles and explore potential career paths they may not have previously considered.
The Physics of the Milk Crate Challenge (and Why You Will Fall)
Why is the latest internet craze so difficult? An engineer explains…
Revisiting: Breaking the Silence: the #MeToo Moment in Scholarly Communication
Revisiting Alison Mudditt’s 2018 post on sexual harassment in our community. What has changed in the last three years, and what can we continue to do to eradicate this behavior for the next generation of women.
Popularizing Cosmology: The Example of Katie Mack
It also can be something of a trap for a well-intentioned academic who wants to write for this audience, as writing for the lay person is often contemptuously dismissed as “popularization.” Woe to the academic who puts an article from The Atlantic or a book from Simon & Schuster into her tenure portfolio! It takes courage. My view is that these brave souls should be called out and celebrated. They are my heroes.
Guest Post — Best Practices and Innovative Approaches to Peer Review in Africa
A pilot series of community peer review events from four organizations (AfricArXiv, Eider Africa, TCC Africa, and PREreview) have been developed to enable equitable practices of research evaluation and review.
Pearson Launches a Comprehensive Textbook Solution for Students. What Are Its Prospects?
Pearson is offering online access to its entire textbook collection for $15 a month. Will students go for it?
Pluralism vs. Monoculture in Scholarly Communication, Part 2
Calls for a monoculture of scholarly communication keep multiplying. But wouldn’t a continued diversity of models be healthier?
What Universities Have Wrought: An Interview with Davarian Baldwin
The crises that US universities are producing in cities are intensifying as fast as others they face. An interview with Davarian Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower.
Friday Video: A Quiet Place II… Study
The BYU Library’s latest humorous promotional video is out, and (if we do say so ourselves) it’s an instant classic.